#Blogtour Love & Care by Shaun Deeney

It’s my turn on the Blogtour Love & Care by Shaun Deeney.

About the Author

Shaun Deeney is a former journalist and Emmy award-winning film and TV producer. He has made current affairs programmes for ITV on social issues, including care. He is also the creator of a podcast on caring for his mother called Love and Care. Shaun has a degree in English and American Literature from Kent at Canterbury. He has two daughters and loves listening to Frank Sinatra. For more information visit shaundeeney.com.

About the book

Shaun is finally free of responsibilities to anyone but himself; single, with two grown up daughters, he is just embarking on a new life in a new country when he gets a call to say his father is dying.

His mother has Parkinson’s Dementia and is in a care home. Shaun faces a stark choice: should he give up his new-found freedom, or turn his back on the woman he’d fought so hard to protect, not least from his own father? Shaun’s mother had loved and cared for her son all her life. Could he now do the same for her?

Review

It’s a peculiar thing to experience, the next stage of life and having to take on certain on certain responsibilities when life comes full circle. The child becomes the carer to the parent. The once strong person in charge becomes vulnerable, frail and needs support.

There is always someone who ends up having to make a choice about stepping in, the question in this case is whether the past can be laid to rest to do so. You have to be able to separate the past and the present.

I think this is a read that will resonate just slightly more with readers who have lived experience of the subject matter. In fact perhaps those who are at different stages of their caring journey will be able to draw from it, both emotionally and practically,

It’s an emotional read, but written with the ability to see the humour in situations that are often fleeting moments, anchors to the past often appearing in the present like small wormholes. The strength needed to be the reverse role, especially when the past still lays on a person like the rubble from a implosion.

The feeling of having a a slipping grasp on what used to be, which is an emotional minefield, is evident throughout the book. Its also what makes the read  frank, poignant and memorable.

Buy Love & Care at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher : ‎Endeavour pub date 9 Feb. 2023. Buy at Amazon com.

#BlogTour The Island House by Mary Considine

It’s my turn on the Blogtour The Island House by Mary Considine. ‘An unforgettable new memoir that will transport readers to the wilds of Cornwall and a remote island life.’

About the Author

Growing up in the flat landscape of Bedfordshire, Mary fell in love with Cornwall and the sea on her first visit as a small child. Distracted by the garlands of London, she spent the 90s writing and directing plays in the London and Edinburgh Fringe, and scriptwriting. 

Work included Angels, Time Out Critics Choice, The Other Half, commissioned by The Carlton Tv screenwriting initiative; and a short film The Hand Job, shortlisted for the Lloyds Bank/Channel 4 short film competition. 

The noughties were spent teaching drama in secondary schools in the hills of North Yorkshire and, in pursuit of her now husband, back in London, before realising her impossible dream of moving to St George ‘s Island in 2010.

About the book

Mary and Patrick’s dream was to live in London, have 2.4 children, the nice house, the successful jobs. But life had other plans, and one traumatic year that all came crashing down.

bruised and battered, Mary finds herself pulled towards Cornwall and dreams of St George’s Island, where she spent halcyon childhood summers. So, when an opportunity arises to become tenants of they renovate the old Island House, they grab it with both hands.

life in the island is hard, especially in winter, the sea and weather, unforgiving. But the rugged natural beauty, the friendly ghosts of previous inhabitants, and the beautiful isolation of island life being hope and purpose, as they discover a resilience they never knew they had.

Review

I think the sentence that resonated most with me was – he knows the island is calling. I think at the core of decisions to sever oneself from the societal norm and rat race, which may or may not go hand-in-hand with trauma, stress, burn-out or other great upheavals there can be an element of gut instinct. The instinct that tells us we need to readjust, re-evaluate and seek change.

The isolation seems to adhere to those lines, although in this case it can bring both peace and hardship. Imagine cutting yourself off from the extended world, where you often rely on nothing else but your own strength and stamina. Survival instinct kicks in, but perhaps also a resonance of forgotten ancestral genetic instincts.

I found the story, the memoir, quite fascinating. There must be plenty of people who think of going slightly off-grid and retreating in a way – I know I certainly have. However I am more realistic about being able to cope with the extreme situations, and reverting to more basic comforts. It’s tough, albeit that fact is obscured by the scenery and the fantastical notion one has stepped back in time and staking a claim and place in the unknown. This imaginary fantastical notion of a fantasy life doesn’t do justice to the people who actually do make these choices and live in isolated areas.

Buy The Island House at Amazon UK or go to Goodreads for any other retailer. Publisher: Monoray; pub date 9th June 2022. Buy at Amazon com. Buy via Octopus Books.